A system and method for searching and deleting segmented wide word entries in a CAM array is disclosed. A normal CAM search operation is executed to find the first word segment of a wide word. Once found, a search and delete operation is executed to find all successive word segments of the wide word, with the last word segment being marked as a deleted word segment, along a first CAM array direction. Once the last word segment is deleted, the wide word is considered to have been deleted because subsequent searches for the wide word will not find its last word segment. A purge operation is then executed along the opposite CAM array direction to delete all the word segments of the deleted wide word. Match processing circuits in each row of the CAM array can pass search results to an adjacent row above or below it to ensure that only word segments belonging to the wide word are found in the search and delete operation and deleted in the purge operation.